


Quiet

by honooko



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 02:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5230829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honooko/pseuds/honooko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sanzo-ikkou are home, and for Sanzo and Goku at least, a great deal of little things have changed. Post-series gen fluff on a rainy day. Spoilers for most recent chapters of the manga.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet

A lot of things had changed since they came home, but none of them were things Sanzo could really say he’d expected. Mostly they’d been small things. The burns running the length of his right arm and reaching up his neck had healed into stiffness that every doctor—and Hakkai, whose word Sanzo trusted more—told him would likely never go away. Gojyo’s fight with his partially awoken youkai blood continued, albeit one he controlled very well considering. Hakkai cared daily for an aging Jeep; the little dragon was draped around his neck constantly, his left wing in tatters. And there was Goku.

He smelled the rain coming now, a skill that probably related more to his true form than any of them liked to think about for long. They’d seen enough of Seiten Taisei to know that he was, and always would be, Goku—but he wasn’t their Goku. 

Sanzo flexed his left hand and shook out a cramp; learning to write with it had been necessary considering the dubious state of his dominant hand and arm, but it would probably never feel as natural or controlled as he wanted it to be. A tap on the door drew his attention.

“Come in.”

A younger monk slid open the door; he bowed low. Everyone in this temple bowed low, so low that half the time Sanzo would recognize their scalps before their faces.

“Son Goku asked that we bring this to you, Sanzo-sama,” the young man said into the floor. _Son Goku._ They only ever called him that now; they no longer felt comfortable with just ‘Goku’, and in the absence of any kind of title, it seemed they had agreed to refer to him in full name always. Sanzo had toyed with the idea of making up a title, one excessively long and meaningless, just to confuse them. He’d given it up when he’d seen Goku’s patient, but pained expression when he overheard someone talking about him. 

“This” turned out to be a tea tray. There was a single, lonely dish with a chip on one corner that had a single hard candy on it. _Ame._ * It was a subtle message, the kind Goku had learned to send on their return trip, when he’d had to carry the pieces of their ragtag group back home. Goku had collected the fragments of them, protected them, and put them back together as best he could until they were safely back where they could learn to fail again. It had been a different journey, the second time.

Sanzo stood up from the desk; he waved the young monk away, not even bothering to voice his dismissal. A glance out the window showed dark, angry clouds on the horizon. They didn’t stab him with a deep pang of grief anymore, but he still disliked them. Sanzo made his way back to the residence areas he and Goku lived in; they’d been offered by the priests of the temple who wanted Sanzo’s status and help without having to deal with him 24/7. It was an offer he and Goku accepted.

“I’m back,” Sanzo called out at the door. There was a clattering in the kitchen; Goku called out a welcome that was cut off swiftly by a curse as something shattered.

“I’m okay!” he shouted.

“Didn’t ask,” Sanzo muttered, shutting the door behind him. He headed straight for the small room in the back that served him as a study now and then, or just a quiet place to exist for a while. It was dimly lit by a single table lamp near the best part of the room: the wide, curtainless window. Sanzo settled in a chair that had been placed as close to the glass as it could go, letting his eyes track the clouds on their hungry path towards the temple.

Next to the lamp was a newspaper, a pack of cigarettes, and a bottle of sake. They hadn’t been there when he left in the morning; he didn’t need to ask where they’d come from. He reached for the cigarettes first. At the first exhale, he watched the smoke curl around him and drift, floating like a feather.

“Coming in,” Goku announced as he entered. He rarely knocked, largely because doors were rarely closed to him anymore. Sanzo wasn’t sure when it started—somewhere along the line, he’d given up on the idea of shutting Goku out. He told himself it was because Goku lived here too, and had every right to move around in the place, but somewhere else, he allowed himself to accept that Goku’s presence just didn’t disturb him anymore. 

Sanzo didn’t look away from the window as Goku approached. He didn’t need to: the window reflected him quite well, even in the low lighting. He was taller than he’d been when they left, but four years would do that to a kid. He’d never match Gojyo, but he’d nearly caught up to Sanzo—barefoot, there were barely three inches between them. His face had lengthened some as well, with his round cheeks losing a bit of volume. His voice dropped a bit—not a lot, not enough to be unsettling, but definitely a pitch lower. He’d always been lean, but his hands were larger with long, tapering fingers.

Every so often, Sanzo found himself wondering if Goku would continue to grow at a normal pace. He hadn’t changed in five hundred years until Sanzo took him down the mountain, at which point he grew about as quickly as a normal child—slightly faster, but not by much. Would he age? Would he grow old, or would his true nature kick in and leave him in a youthful appearance for centuries more? 

He dismissed the thought; it didn’t matter. Goku would be Goku, regardless of how long it would take him to be an adult, or how long he’d be that way.

Goku approached the table, standing just behind Sanzo. He leaned down to place a small bowl in front of him: it was not the prettiest chazuke, but it was obvious he’d put some effort into it. His hair brushed Sanzo’s face; it smelled like a warm summer afternoon. Goku had decided to grow it out again and usually it was tied back, but at home he preferred to let it hang. The sight of the dish tugged a reluctant smile from the corner of Sanzo’s mouth.

“When’d you learn that?” he asked. Goku pulled up the second chair, turning to sit on it backwards and brace his chin on his crossed arms. He was making that quiet little pleased expression that meant he’d seen Sanzo’s not-terribly-hidden smile. 

“Hakkai,” Goku said, shrugging one shoulder. “And a book.”

“A book? Were there words, or just nice pictures?” Sanzo said, tapping some ash off his cigarette. Goku chuckled as he inhaled again; their teasing hadn’t really let up, but the tone was different. Now, Goku knew better than to think Sanzo actually thought him stupid. Usually.

“Yeah, tons of pictures of rice in tea. Real hard to work out the recipe,” Goku said, grinning widely. “Spent a few days on it, honestly.”

“That’s probably because you ate the first hundred attempts yourself,” Sanzo informed him, turning his head to look at Goku fully. The kid was watching him with half-lidded golden eyes; he was almost _too_ pleased with himself. Sanzo reached out to flick him in the center of his forehead.

“Ow!” Goku said, rubbing the spot. “What was that for?!”

“Don’t get cocky,” Sanzo advised him. “Just because it looks alright doesn’t mean it won’t taste like shit.”

“Would I give it to you if it tasted shitty?”

“Yes. If only because you don’t seem to know when something tastes shitty.”

A crack of thunder interrupted them; the rain began almost immediately, beads of water running down the glass of the huge window. As the darkness swallowed up the sky, Sanzo fell into silence, his hand on the table near enough to the ash tray for the grey dust to fall into. 

Goku pushed the chazuke forward, followed immediately by a sake cup. Sanzo looked at them, then up at Goku’s face. His smug expression was gone, replaced by one that Sanzo was almost willing to accept as concern. When had they started doing this? When had Goku started preparing these things to ease Sanzo’s long, rainy nights? When had he decided to try and soften the melancholy with things he knew granted rare, simple peace of mind?

When had Sanzo started noticing that Goku no longer disturbed that uneasy peace?

“How old are you now?” he asked softly. Goku frowned. He didn’t know—Sanzo did, and he suspected Goku had picked up a few clues here and there, but nothing solid enough to confidently say a number. 

“…It doesn’t matter. Get another cup.”

“What?” Goku asked, surprise sending his eyebrows high up his forehead.

“You got a hearing problem? Get another cup.” When Sanzo’s meaning filtered through, Goku almost knocked the chair over in his haste to run back to the kitchen. Sanzo watched more rain fogging up the window; Goku was back in a flash, putting a second sake cup on the table and settling in his backwards chair.

“Listen,” Sanzo said, his voice soft but still distinctly instructional. “Sake is strong. Don’t be an idiot and chug a bottle, you’ll regret it.”

Goku nodded, eyebrows knit as he focused all his attention on Sanzo.

“Drink it slowly. Savor it. There’s no point if you knock it back like a shot.” More furious nodding; he continued. “Unless you’re alone, you don’t serve yourself. It’s rude. You serve each other.” To demonstrate the point, Sanzo poured a small amount into the cup in front of Goku. As soon as he set down the bottle, Goku grabbed hold of it; Sanzo winced, bracing himself for a spill, but Goku had a steady hand. At first, he poured an equal amount that he’d been given, but after a moment of hesitation, he added a little more.

The monkey was extremely observant lately, loathe as Sanzo was to admit it.

“Final point,” Sanzo said. “Do not, under any circumstances, drink with Hakkai.”

“Why not?” Goku asked.

“Because he has a hollow leg or some shit, and you’ll end up either with alcohol poisoning, or dead,” Sanzo informed him dryly. “Now, lift it.”

Goku obediently lifted his small cup.

“Cheers,” Sanzo said.

“Cheers.”

They both drank; the sake was dry, almost too bitter as Sanzo let it settle for a moment in his mouth before swallowing. He set his cup down and glanced at Goku.

His cup was also empty. He set it down carefully, staring at it in silence for a moment before looking at Sanzo with a very serious expression.

“Sanzo.”

“What?”

“That… tasted awful,” he said. “Like. It kind of hurt my mouth.”

“I never said it was good,” Sanzo said with a wry smile. Another thunderclap; his attention whipped back to the rainfall on the window. The silence was heavy, but not uncomfortable. There was a soft grinding sound as Goku once again pushed the bowl of chazuke closer to him. Sanzo shot him a look.

“It tastes better than the sake,” Goku said. “I swear.”

“I don’t need a nursemaid,” Sanzo told him.

“Good,” Goku said immediately. “You’re a shitty patient.” To appease him, Sanzo picked up the spoon and scooped out a small portion; he still wasn’t entirely convinced that it wouldn’t be accidentally poisoned somehow. Taking a quick bite, he chewed thoughtfully.

“Those must have been some good pictures,” Sanzo commented, impressed despite himself. Goku grinned, ducking his head to hide the smile. Reaching out one hand, he ruffled Goku’s hair in what he refused to admit was a fond manner.

He turned back to the window, and the rain. Goku sat in silence next to him; it was amazing how quiet he could be now, when he knew it allowed him to stay. Sanzo even thought that sometimes, it was almost nice. Strange, but nice. It was nice to come back to a place that felt like a home. It was nice to have someone go out of their way to make his bad days easier. It was nice to stare out the window at the cursed rain and not feel utterly alone.

“How much longer will it rain?” he asked. Goku shifted in his chair.

“A couple of days. Should be gone by Tuesday morning.” Sanzo didn’t ask him how he knew—weather was just something Goku knew these days. It had started when Seiten Taisei unleashed a thunderstorm on Hakkai; since then, it became a useful skill on the road. Now he used it mostly, it seemed, for Sanzo’s benefit.

“Goku.” Sanzo lifted the sake bottle and added a very small amount to the cup; Goku looked at it with some concern, but took the bottle and filled another cup for Sanzo anyway. He picked up his own cup and looked at Sanzo expectantly.

Sanzo drained his; Goku followed suit, grimacing slightly.

“Thanks.”

The silence that followed was finally broken by a light snort.

“This is the worst ‘thank you’ ever,” Goku said, lifting his cup. He was grinning; he knew better than to crow. “Can I try beer next?”

Sanzo smiled.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

The spent the evening staring out the window, watching the water roll down the glass, the silence punctuated by an occasional comment from Sanzo, or question from Goku, and the clink of ceramic cups, all the while bathing in the drifts of soft grey smoke.

A lot of things had changed since they came home, but none of them were things Sanzo could really say he’d expected. 

That didn’t mean he minded them at all.

**Author's Note:**

> _*Ame is the Japanese word for both ‘hard candy’ and ‘rain’._


End file.
